


A Teddy Bear Named Steve

by nightwalker



Category: Marvel (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Aunt Peggy Carter, Clint is an instigator, Established Relationship, Gabe Jones - Freeform, Gabe and Peggy are totally married FYI, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Teddy Bears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 14:06:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11625138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightwalker/pseuds/nightwalker
Summary: While cleaning out the attic, Tony finds some old friends he thought long lost.





	A Teddy Bear Named Steve

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a prompt for @squeeful on Tumblr

Aunt Peggy always gave the best presents.

“This one is Steve Bear,” Aunt Peggy told him, “and this one is Bucky Bear.” She snuggled him close and kissed his cheek as he examined his Christmas present. “They’re soldiers and best friends.”

Tony examined the bears with wide eyes and careful fingers. “Steve and Bucky?” he asked in a hushed voice. “Like Captain America and Bucky?”

“The very same,” Aunt Peggy said.

Steve Bear was golden brown and had big, blue eyes. There was a shock of blond hair atop his head and he was dressed in a blue shirt with a big white star on the chest. He had a satchel stitched to one shoulder. “Open it,” Aunt Peggy encouraged him, and when Tony carefully lifted the flap, there was a small sketchpad and several tiny colored pencils inside.

“Where’s his shield?” Tony asked. He examined the pencils carefully but they appeared to be real. He wondered how Aunt Peggy got them so small.

“Steve doesn’t have a shield today.” Aunt Peggy smoothed her fingers over the bear’s hair. “This is his secret identity. He can’t let anyone know that Steve is actually Captain Abearica.”

“Abearica,” Tony echoed delightedly. “Is there a Captain Abearica, too?”

“Don’t be greedy,” Howard scolded. He didn’t look up from the newspaper, and despite it being eight o'clock on Christmas morning, already had a glass of scotch in his hand.

Tony ducked his head at Howard’s sharp retort. “I’m sorry, Aunt Peggy.”

“It’s all right, sweetheart.” Aunt Peggy made a face at Howard, then bopped Tony on the nose with one finger. “Captain Abearica isn’t here today. But if Steve and Bucky need back up, he’ll come.”

Bucky Bear was dark brown and wore a dark blue soldier’s jacket. He had a bag, too, and inside was a little toy gun and a handkerchief with the Howling Commandos emblem stitched into it. Tony smoothed the handkerchief out carefully on his knee.

“Is there a Peggy Bear?” he asked.

Aunt Peggy bounced him on her knee. “No, sweetie. There’s no Peggy Bear.”

“Peggy Bear was a soldier, too,” Tony said. He refolded the cloth so the logo was on top, then carefully packed it back into Bucky Bear’s backpack. “Is she with Captain Abearica?”

Aunt Peggy kissed the back of his head. “Yes, darling. She and the Captain are on a mission.”

“Are they fighting the Nazis together?”

“Anthony Edward Stark.” Howard set his drink down with a thump and Tony jumped a little. Aunt Peggy gripped him extra tight for a second and then she slowly let go. “You are bothering Mrs. Jones.”

“He’s not bothering me, Howard.” Aunt Peggy ran her hand over his hair and Tony ducked his head a little. “But why don’t you start picking up your presents? I’ll help you carry them upstairs.”

Tony knew better than to make Howard upset when he got loud like that, so he nodded and slid off Aunt Peggy’s lap. “I can get it, Aunt Peggy. Thank you very much for my presents.”

“You’re very welcome. Gabe, darling, would you help him carry the books? I don’t want him tumbling down the stairs.”

“Of course.” Uncle Gabe made the same face that Aunt Peggy had made earlier, then started gathering up the books Tony had gotten for Christmas. “Come on, squirt. Show me where all this goes, all right?”

Howard sighed. “He’s too old for all this nonsense, Peggy. You’re spoiling him.”

“He is five years old, Howard, it’s not as if I were giving him pacifiers and building blocks, now is it?” Aunt Peggy shut the doors behind them as Tony led Uncle Gabe toward the staircase, but he could still hear her a little bit. “Where is Maria? I had a letter from her not last month saying she would be here.”

When Tony and Uncle Gabe came back downstairs, Howard was gone to work and Aunt Peggy was helping Jarvis and Cook make an old-fashioned Christmas breakfast.

****

Tony was six, and Bucky Bear had a rip in his arm.

“He was wounded in battle.” Tony held the bear out. “Can you fix him?”

Mother took it from him and examined it carefully for a minute. “Oh yes,” she said finally. “This isn’t a bad wound at all. But how did he get hurt?”

Tony had left the toy sitting on the dining room table and Howard had thrown it out the back door toward the trash cans. “He was captured by the Red Skull. But he escaped.”

“Oh, that’s very scary.” Mother sat Bucky Bear on her lap and patted him on the head. “If you go fetch my sewing bag, I think we can fix him right up.”

****

The storm was terrible, thunder loud enough to shake the house and lightning that flashed bright enough to light up the entire room. The rain pounded against the window hard enough to rattle the glass in the pane, and the wind was howling like an air raid siren.

Tony clutched Steve Bear to his chest and hid under the blankets.

He could hear yelling from downstairs – Mother and Howard were almost as loud as the storm, and they were yelling about him. Mother was crying, but Howard just sounded mad.

Howard was always mad. At Mother, at Tony, at work, at the people on TV. The only person he wasn’t mad at all the time anymore was Jarvis, but no one was ever mad at Jarvis.

“He’s too young!” Mother yelled and the wind slammed against the house with sudden ferocity. “Howard, he’s only nine years old!”

He would be ten in seven months, so he was technically almost nine and a half. He wasn’t as young as all that.

Howard’s response was lost in the storm, but the mother’s voice pierced through the noise. “Over my dead body!”

“Don’t be so bloody dramatic! You’re infantalizing him!”

“ _He is a child!_ ”

Another crash of thunder shook the house and as it faded, Tony heard the stamp of Howard’s shoes on the staircase. He clutched Steve Bear tighter, no longer afraid of the storm.

“You are going to wake him!” Mother said in a low voice, and then someone ripped away the blankets.

Tony cringed, burying his face in Steve Bear.

“For God’s sake,” Howard said. He threw the blanket to the ground and lightning flashed bright enough to light the entire room. “Pathetic.”

“He’s nine,” Mother said. “Stop it.”

“Look at him! Afraid of the weather,” Howard said. He grabbed Steve Bear and yanked him out of Tony’s grip. Tony knew better than to protest, so he just clenched his hands into fists and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ll not tolerate my only son being a sniveling coward.”

“Stop it!” Mother grabbed the blanket off the floor. “We have talked about this,” she said in a low angry voice. “You have been drinking. You shouldn’t be here right now.”

“We’re not done talking about this,” Howard said. “You're ruining him.”

“Just go back downstairs,” Mother said. “I’ll put Tony back to bed and then we can talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Howard said. “I’ve made up my mind.” He tossed Steve Bear into the corner with a sneer. “He has a lot of responsibilities to prepare for. It’s well past time he started to grow up and stopped all this…” He grabbed Bucky Bear off the shelf and shook him. “Nothing but fairy tales and bullshit. I’ve let you and Peggy fill his head with this nonsense for long enough.” He dropped Bucky Bear on the floor and stepped on him as he stormed out of the room.

Mother sighed, holding Tony’s blanket in one hand and rubbing the other one over her eyes. “Tony, you know you’re supposed to be asleep right now.”

Tony nodded and wrapped his arms around his knees. “I’m sorry. It was loud.”

“I know the storm was loud-”

“Not the storm,” Tony mumbled.

“Oh. Oh, baby, I’m sorry.” Mother put the blanket down on the bed and sat beside him. “You heard us fighting?”

“Yeah.”

She made a sad sound and sat there for a long time, looking at her hands. Tony inched over until he was sitting against her side.

“Father wants you to go to a special school,” Mother said finally. “It’s in Boston, so you’d have to go and spend the night and only come home for special occasions.”

“Can Jarvis come?” Tony asked.

“No,” Mother said. “No, the school is just for little boys. Very smart little boys.”

“Can I bring Steve and Bucky?”

Mother wrapped an arm around him and hugged him. “No, baby. Toys like that wouldn’t be allowed. The boys at this school – they’d be much older than you, Tony. You’re very, very smart, so you’d have to go to school with the older boys. And they wouldn’t have toys like Steve and Bucky.”

“Oh.” Tony leaned into her embrace. “Do I have to?”

“Well, that depends.” Mother kissed the top of his head. “Do you think you might like going to the special school?”

“No,” Tony said. “Not if I can’t bring Jarvis or Steve and Bucky. And older boys never like me.”

“All right then. I’ll talk to your father and we’ll see about school.” She hugged him tight. “Get back to bed now. It’s far too late for you to be up.”

He crawled up to the top of the bed and curled up against the pillow while Mother spread the blanket over him. “Oh, we mustn’t forget these,” she said and tucked Bucky Bear and Steve Bear in on either side of him.

“Thank you,” Tony said.

She leaned down and kissed his cheek. “Go to sleep now,” she said. “We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

****

Tony was ten and a half when he came back from his first semester at boarding school.

He was wearing his uniform and carrying the single bag that he’d packed for the holidays. The driver had picked him up at school and deposited him in front of the Mansion with no fuss and little aplomb. Jarvis had met him at the front door and sent him up to his room to change for lunch.

“Are Mother and Father here?” he asked.

“Your father is on an expedition,” Jarvis said. “Your mother is at a charity luncheon. She will be home for dinner. Run upstairs and change.”

His room is empty.

The shelves are bare of everything but books, and even most of those are gone. The Hardy Boys books his mother had bought him when he was little. The Captain America comics and adventure stories that Aunt Peggy and Uncle Gabe gave him. All of his toys – the board games and his Lincoln Logs and his Legos.

And Steve Bear and Bucky Bear.

All of it was gone.

His clothes were still in the dresser and closet, so he unpacked and changed into something appropriate for lunch. He put his suitcase away in the closet.

He didn’t cry, not once, even when Howard forgot to call home on Christmas morning.

****

“Hey, what’s this?”

Clint pulled something out of a box and shook it, sending up another cloud of dust. He waved it away with one hand – rather ineffectively – and examined the ratty old stuffed animal in his hand. “Awwww, did little Tony have a teddy bear?”

“I’m fairly certain every child in America had a teddy bear,” Tony said. He was elbow deep in a box full of old clothes, trying to determine if they were in any fit state to be donated. He doubted Goodwill would want it, but he rather thought one of the local theatre companies might – his mother’s old gowns were too dated for anyone today to wear.

“Aww, he’s cute. Look he’s got a big star on his chest, just like you, Cap.”

“What?” Tony sat back on his heels and blinked at the bear. “Oh my god. Steve Bear.”

“ _Steve Bear?!_ ” Clint echoed, a wickedly delighted grin on his face.

“Oh, shut up. Give me that.” Tony plucked Steve Bear out of Clint’s hand. “I haven’t seen this guy since I was ten or twelve. Is Bucky Bear in there, too?”

“Bucky Bear?” Steve asked.

“Aunt Peggy made them for me. For Christmas. God, I must have been four? Little, anyway.” Tony brushed dust off Steve Bear’s head. “I remember Dad hated them. He thought they were disrespectful. He must have tried to throw them out a dozen times. Mom or Jarvis must have hidden them up here after I went to boarding school.”

“It looks cute,” Steve said and he offered Tony a little smile. “Steve Bear? Not Captain America Bear?”

“Steve Bear was his secret identity,” Tony said. He set the bear down gently on the floor and resisted the urge to hold it in his lap. “Captain Abearica was away on a mission with Peggy Bear. For a couple of years, every time I spoke to her, Aunt Peggy would tell me a different story about what top secret mission they were off on.” He leaned over to peer into the box. “Aunt Peggy always told me about Steve, you know. Not just Cap.”

“I – that’s good. To know.” Steve smiled, a little sadly. “My god, though, us dating is getting weirder and weirder the more I learn about your past.”

“It’s super weird,” Clint agreed. “Is this one Bucky Bear?” He pulled out a second bear, with darker fur and a military jacket.

“That’s him,” Tony said. He didn’t object when Steve carefully lifted the bear out of Clint’s hands.

“Peggy made these?”

“By hand.” Tony grinned. “And she was _not_ a crafty lady by nature, you know. She used to make Uncle Gabe darn her socks and hem her slacks. One time I asked her to help me with a school project and she just stared at the glue and glitter and macaroni like I’d asked her to single-handedly rebuild the Brooklyn Bridge.”

Steve laughed. “I didn’t know that, actually. We didn’t actually know each other all that long. There were a lot of things I never got to learn about her.”

“I could tell you,” Tony offered. He picked up Steve Bear again and rubbed his fingers over the star on his chest. “If you want? If it wouldn’t be too weird, listening to your boyfriend talk about being raised by your girlfriend.”

“Super weird,” Clint repeated.

But Steve just smiled and held Bucky Bear out for Tony to take. “I think it’s be nice, actually. We should keep them,” he said, gesturing to the bears. “We can’t throw them out.”

“I’m thirty-five years old, Steve. I don’t really do stuffed animals anymore.” He couldn’t quite bring himself to put them back in the box though.

“Put them away then, somewhere safe. One day you’ll want to give them to your son. Or daughter. Or,” Steve was suddenly blushing bright red as Clint and Tony raised identical eyebrows at him. “Or Rhodey’s son? Or, or – look, you’ve got all this Captain America memorabilia all over the place anyway, no one would even blink at a couple of one-of-a-kind collectibles like these two.”

“I bet that would piss off your old man,” Clint said.

“Clint is a genius,” Tony said.

“Clint is an instigator,” Steve corrected. “Come on. We’ve done enough clearing out the attic for one day. Come downstairs and we’ll get cleaned up and you can tell me the story of when Peggy gave them to you.”

“Steve Bear used to sleep with me at night,” Tony said. “He protected me from the Nazis in my closet.”

“You were a weird kid,” Clint said. “Almost as weird as your relationship.“

“Don’t make me jealous of Steve Bear,” Steve said. “We’ve only just met, but I will banish him to the closet if he starts taking liberties.” He rose up on his knees and kissed Tony on the nose. “I’m the only Steve who gets to sleep with you now.”

“What about Bucky?” Tony asked innocently.


End file.
